Season 3, Ep 03: Voices for Change: Liza Henshaw and the Global Citizen Movement

“People want to come along with you as long as they know you’ve designed an outcome that genuinely changes the world,” says Liza Henshaw, president of Global Citizen, an international organization dedicated to advocacy and education. Under the motto “actions are our currency,” 12 million citizens have committed over 33 million acts of service—ranging from reading articles to contacting legislators to committing to a week of plastic-free living. With its “Power Our Planet” campaign, Global Citizen rallied its community as well as several big-name artists like Billie Eilish and Lenny Kravitz to petition the World Bank to allow the country of Malawi a debt pause clause in the wake of Cyclone Freddy. On this episode of Women Igniting Change, Liza explains how this campaign has changed the approach to natural disaster relief going forward. She’ll also explain how Global Citizen, known for its music festivals, aims to pioneer a world class touring circuit across the continent with its Move Africa initiative. 

By returning to the same markets over a five-year period, Move Africa will invest in and build relationships with local markets, businesses and entrepreneurs. Creating jobs and skills, it will attract the capital needed for these businesses in order to support the touring market and the creator economy that bolster a world class tour, ultimately, driving investment in the African entertainment industry. Liza tells the story of Christian, a small business owner in Rwanda, whose business and skillset were expanded exponentially after being approached by Global Citizen to produce a show featuring hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar. 

This is the difference made when an organization creates sectors versus merely creating jobs, Liza explains. Join today’s discussion to learn how Global Citizen plans to continue to create systemic change on a global scale, and how you can get involved. 

Quotes

• “Just because you don’t know it, doesn’t mean you should be afraid of it. It just means go and embrace it and it’s pretty fun. It still is.” (8:35 | Liza Henshaw)
• “You’d be surprised. People want to come along with you as long as they know you’ve designed an outcome that genuinely changes the world.” (19:15 | Liza Henshaw)
• “A lot of people want to talk about investment in Africa and job creation in Africa, but when you create the sector, which is what this touring business will do, it makes it a lot easier to create the jobs because now the sector and that economy can support it.” (24:48 | Liza Henshaw) 
• “We don’t do any of that on-the-ground work. I don’t want a single local charity to say, ‘Oh, no. Global Citizen’s coming in and it’s going to suck the oxygen out of my…’ I need those people. We are not the traditional charity that builds the schools and the water wells. We need those groups on the ground. I want to take the Global Citizen spotlight and shine that right on what you’re doing and hope that more donations come to you from that.” (29:01 | Liza Henshaw)